Deleted member 1487
If you're trying to sustained fire from a magazine weapon, you're doing sustained fire wrong. Autorifles have a role, especially on the attack, but even with small enhancements like magazine placement to enhance change outs from a prone position, it isn't making it a real sustained fire LMG, especially once you factor in the weight issues of magazines vs. belt feeding and the limited ammo carrying capacity of the Bren team (which needs to factor in the weight of the weapon itself) means you're going to lose against a belt fed LMG in sustained fire.If you are trying to do sustained fire from the prone, a top loading magazine beats a conventional one any day.
So why not either go belt fed and heavy or light and magazine fed, which means you can shoulder fire for the assault? Smaller caliber bullets like the Swedish 6.5 are lighter per round, so more rounds, smaller magazines, plus the lower recoil can mean a lighter gun if needed. Now a quick change barrel BAR converted to belt feeding in 6.5mm would be a real killer.